This page was created by Anonymous. 

Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

Truss shop windows broken

Windows were broken in Fred Noble's Truss Shop at 2136 7th Avenue sometime during the disorder. Just south of the intersection with West 127th Street, the store was in the midst of the three-block section of 7th Avenue north of West 125th Street that saw multiple reported broken windows and looting, and three assaults on whites, including both James Wrigley and a Fifth Avenue Coach Company bus being hit by objects. Officer Platt's arrest of Arthur Killen for allegedly breaking windows in the Truss Shop was the only arrest that can be identified as having occurred in this area during the disorder. When police searched Killen they found an "open knife" in his possession, according to a Home News story.

A forty-three-year-old Black man, Killen lived at 277 West 127th Street, at the western end of the block that intersected with 7th Avenue near the Truss Shop. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, charged with both malicious mischief and possession of a knife. Magistrate Renaud transferred Killen to the Court of Special Sessions, and held him on bail of $500. The outcome of his prosecution is unknown.

A story in the Home News about his appearance in the Magistrates Court is the only evidence connecting Killen to 2136 7th Avenue, which it identified as a "surgical instrument store." The MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935 identified the business as a "Truss Shop;" a truss is a surgical appliance, typically used by hernia patients.

A white-owned "Truss Shop" is recorded at 2136 7th Avenue, with the owner identified as Noble, in the MCCH business survey. In the Tax Department photograph from sometime between 1939 and 1941 the name of the business at that address is not visible.

This page has tags:

This page references: